South African newspapers are not dying

JOHANNESBURG – According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ fourth annual South African Entertainment and Media Outlook report, these industry are estimated to grow by 10.9% over the next five years, which means it’ll generate R175bn in 2017.

“The South African market bucks the trend seen in other nations; its revenues are increasing even while the market evolves to digitised formats,” the report explains. “In contrast, newspapers in the UK and the US are struggling to devise sustainable long-term business models.”

The survey paints a newspaper industry that is “buoyant and diverse”, it forecasts that advertising revenue with grow by 6.2% from R7.5bn to R10.1bn. In contrast, online advertising is expected to grow by 27% a year, which is only worth R506m – only 5% of newspaper revenue.

Digital circulation revenues are expected to grow from R13mil to R215mil by 2017, but contrary to other countries with the same broadband, South Africans still prefer print over digital news content. Readership remains constant with 31% of the adult population read a daily newspaper.

Vicky Myburgh, PwC’s entertainment and media industries leader for South Africa, told the Business Times, that while most of the growth would be from digital technology, the traditional non-digital media would still dominate the industry over the next five years.

Myburgh continues, that in South Africa books were struggling, as they were “largely unaffordable”. Yet magazines and newspapers will continue to grow, because of price and diversity in languages.